Continued Fairing the Hulls, and Second Daggerboard Trunk

April 15, 2018

I began the day's restoration work with water-washing both hulls' recent fiberglass and fairing work.  The water-wash removed the amine blush (a contaminate to further prep work if not removed), and then got to sanding the filled areas to bring them down to fair with their surrounding hull surfaces.  With both hulls faired by a combination of the RO sander with 80-grit discs and by hand, I then vacuumed the surfaces to remove most of the sanding dust.  I did a final wipe down with acetone to remove the remaining sanding residue.  

After sanding/fairing the hulls, I could see that some of the previously filled and faired work areas required another skim coat of the fairing compound.  The white Dhow was a step further along in the fairing process than that of the blue Dhow, and so I applied a thin coat of West System's 410 microlight for its final application.

I worked around the white Dhow, applying the 410 microlight to previous faired areas to fill pin holes and feather out and blend the worked areas in with that of its surrounding surfaces.

With the  white Dhow completed, I moved over and applied the balance of the 410 microlight to portions of the blue Dhow's hull, filling stress cracks in the aged, thin gelcoat.  I also mixed another batch of epoxy thickened with 406 collodial silica and 407 low-density compounds, applying that to the previously filled and faired work surfaces. 

I would have one additional fairing application on the blue Dhow before calling it good.  Both hulls are close to receiving their first coats of primer paint.

Since I reached a stopping point in working on the hulls, I moved over to the shop to construct the second daggerboard (db) trunk.  I transferred dimension to yet more meranti off cuts and passed them across the table saw to cut to dimension.  I then utilized the miter fence and cut the angles.  I ripped a piece of teak stock to a 1" thickness, and then halved it lengthwise.

With all components of the db trunk prepared, I got to work assembling them.  I aligned the pieces and firmly clamped them together, and then pre-drilled and placed four screws at the corners.  With the db trunk assembled, I marked the individual pieces so that I could quickly reassemble it after disassembling and countersinking for the screw heads. 

After countersinking with a forstner bit, I reassembled the db trunk and cut off the tails of the teak stock. 

Now for the test fit...yet again, another great fitting daggerboard trunk!  Satisfied with the construction, I decided to go ahead and add 4 additional countersunk fasteners to each db trunk.  I first marked and predrilled for each fastener location, and then carefully marked each piece in an areas adjacent and aligned with each of the surrounding pieces.  After marking the pieces I disassembled the db trunks, and bored a hole with the forstner bit for a mahogany bung.

While the db trunks were disassembled, I decided to go ahead and epoxy coat the interior surfaces of the trunks.  For this process, I needed to clean the oils from the meranti boards and remove any unwanted surfaces contaminates.  To that end, I wiped down all surfaces that were to be coated and then set them aside.  I mixed a small batch of neat epoxy (no thickeners), and then painted the epoxy onto the boards.  Upon reassembly, I will go ahead and epoxy coat the exterior prior to painting them.

Total Time Today 4.5 hrs